Physical manifestations of ambiguity : understanding drones as drivers of ambiguous influence

Dyson, Anna and Prince, Daniel and Lacy, Mark (2025) Physical manifestations of ambiguity : understanding drones as drivers of ambiguous influence. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

Operating at the intersection of the cyber and physical domains, the significance and impact of drones in contemporary conflict and security extends far beyond their tangible form and kinetic effects. While often framed as tools of precision and certainty bringing more security to the international arena, this research exposes how drones paradoxically amplify ambiguity within the contemporary landscape of conflict and security. Against the backdrop of a new and complex era of drone use typified by a multiplicity of users, contexts, applications, objectives, and technical capabilities, this thesis exposes how the drone’s emerging plurality fosters layers of ambiguity that complicate efforts to clearly delineate the drone’s capabilities, purposes, and operators. In doing so, it exposes the drone’s capacity to produce a plethora of interpretive challenges that stymie effective responses and create ambiguous conditions that can be exploited by nefarious actors. Through a detailed analysis of the drone’s intrinsic and extrinsic properties, this research exposes the depth and plurality of how the drone is materially assembled as an ambiguous device. It explores the technology’s increasing ubiquity, modification potential, and emerging utility at the nexus of the cyber and physical realms, revealing the drone’s active shaping of uncertainty and its facilitation of deniable and deceptive practices in both military and civilian contexts. The thesis develops three innovative concepts that advance our understanding of the drone for international security: the Liminal Assemblage – a conceptual tool for understanding the drone’s capacity to traverse boundaries, defy categorisations, and generate multiple conflicting narratives about its purpose, capabilities, operator, and origin; Drone Plasticity – a novel concept that extends current thinking on the agency of objects in the era of disruptive technologies with the capacity for vast intrinsic, extrinsic, and self-modification; and Remote Physical Presence – a reframing of the contemporary drone as an ambiguous actor that inherits and extends the ambiguities of the cyber domain into the physical world, reshaping our understanding of influence, agency and presence in both the physical and digital domains. In examining the role of drones in the production of ambiguity, this thesis contributes to the emerging discourse between security studies and new materialism, bringing to light new ways in which we can observe complex socio-technical systems such as drones shaping international security through the effects they can produce. It advances understandings of how non-human agency plays an active role in the international arena, arguing for a more nuanced consideration of the drone’s capacity to give rise to novel modes of influence and effect beyond their initial purposes, which shape how they are used, perceived, responded to, and even designed. While grounded in the context of drones, this framework is applicable to other cyber-physical intermediaries including telepresence robotics, autonomous vehicles, and future developments in synthetic body replicants and advanced humanoid robotics. This research provides an important benchmark for re-conceptualising the influence of complex remote-physical technologies, highlighting the pressing need for better frameworks to address the unique security challenges they pose.